


An Acre of Land

by onstraysod



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Bridal-style carrying, Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Saying I Love You, Tucking tired stewards into bed, Without saying I love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: Edward tried to think of something to say. That was always the problem: finding the right words. There was so much he wanted to express, to make Thomas understand, but he lacked the vocabulary or the dexterity of tongue, or maybe just the courage. And, after all, what were words anyway but strings of sounds, inadequate for communicating the immensity of what he felt.





	An Acre of Land

A blizzard had blown up in the late afternoon and it continued unabated in the night, throwing itself in blind fury against the hull, wrapping the vessel like a teacup cushioned in layers of cotton wool. The wind whistling along the wooden walls, the groans and creaks of the ship as she shifted in her icy berth, were as a lullaby to the men in her belly, soothed to sleep in bunk or hammock by the now-familiar sounds. 

Worry kept Edward Little awake at his writing desk, lingering over the day’s log until what would have been the middle watch, had the system not been suspended for the winter. Once he was reasonably sure that even the lightest sleepers aboard would have succumbed to the sound of the storm, he rose and walked as stealthily as was possible in an old bomb ship to the captain’s cabin, sliding the door open inch by soft inch. The first sight to meet his eyes was the one he’d feared to see.

Thomas Jopson sat with his back to the table, his chair turned so he could face the door of Crozier’s berth. One arm was slung over the back of the chair and the steward’s head rested awkwardly on his bicep, his neck bent at a right angle to accommodate the weight. His eyes were closed, his breath falling through slightly parted lips, his usually youthful visage drawn and sallow with exhaustion. Easing the door shut behind him, Edward swallowed down a rush of feeling he’d last experienced as a boy, watching a neighbor whip a stray dog.

For a full minute or more he stood just inside the cabin, listening for the coughs and groans and feeble mutterings that had betrayed the captain’s distress over the last few weeks. Hearing nothing but the silence of undisturbed sleep, Edward crossed to where Thomas was folded deep in helpless slumber. He had caught the steward battling beneath the weight of his fatigue on other occasions: eyelids slipping closed in the midst of a hurried meal, his usual ramrod posture sagging with the slump of his shoulders. Yet Thomas had refused all offers of help, dismissed all concerns about the toll caring for Crozier might be taking on his own well being. _I made a promise to him_ he had told Edward more than once _and I won’t fail him_ , to which Edward had answered that Thomas could accomplish very little for the captain if he made himself ill. The only response he’d gotten to this had been a sad shake of the head and a look in which exasperation and affection were equally mixed.

It had been inevitable, at least to Edward’s way of thinking, that exhaustion would eventually triumph over Thomas’s steely determination, though in truth he’d expected it to happen sooner. Standing beside the sleeping man, his heart rolled over, swept from its normal station by a tide of mixed emotions: infatuation eddying around irritation, desire around concern. Reaching out, he touched Thomas’s shoulder, nudged him gently, but the steward merely grunted softly and continued to doze.

“Very well. We’ll do this another way.” Whispering the words half to himself, Edward slipped one arm beneath Jopson’s knees, wrapped the other around his back, and lifted the sleeping steward in his arms. Pausing for a moment to adjust to the weight, he shifted Thomas more snugly against his chest, then stepped slowly forward, not wishing to rouse either the captain or the sleeper in his arms by bumping into a wall or treading on a noisy board. As he angled around to slide the cabin door open with the toe of his boot, however, Thomas stirred slightly, his head nestling in against Edward’s neck, breath spilling in warm tendrils beneath his collar. 

“Ship’s moving.” The steward mumbled the words, eyes still closed. The fingers of his right hand curled around the edge of Edward’s lapel.

“You’re moving.” Edward tilted his head down so he could whisper right into Thomas’s ear. “I’m taking you to your bunk.” The soap-scrubbed scent of the steward’s skin against his nose was too tempting to Edward, and he couldn’t help but press a kiss to Thomas’s temple.

Wiggling a little, Thomas sighed deeply, still in the grip of sleep. “Why?”

“Because you’re exhausted, Thomas. And I’m worried about you. You need to rest.”

He turned sideways, easing his precious burden through the doorway and pausing again to close the cabin door with his foot. The door of Thomas’s bunk was partly ajar and Edward nudged it fully open with his elbow, carefully carrying the steward inside. 

He wasn’t surprised to find that the bunk had been neatly made that morning, bedclothes pulled smooth and tucked beneath the edges of the mattress, a spare blanket folded in a perfect square at the foot of the bed. Jopson did nothing by half measures. Edward stood for a moment, just to hold his lover a little longer against him, before carefully lowering the sleeping man to his bunk. Sighing again and stretching a little, Thomas nuzzled his face into the pillow as Edward closed the cabin door.

For almost two weeks now, Jopson had spent every moment of every day easing the captain through his illness. Spooning him his food, wiping up his sick, bathing him, shaving him, changing soiled bedding, washing out nightshirts when no more fresh ones were to be had. He’d combed Crozier’s hair, brushed his teeth when the captain’s hands shook too much to hold the brush, tucked him in and watched over him as he slept, ready to raise a cup of water to his lips when thirsty or a bucket when what little food he’d gotten down the man threatened to come back up. He’d sacrificed his own rest and meals, upended his daily schedule, all without neglecting the neatness of his person or any of his other duties. And never once had he uttered a word of self-pity or complaint.

Edward was in awe of him.

Yet enough was enough. For days he’d grudgingly acceded to Thomas’s insistence that he be left alone to care for the captain, but his willingness to indulge the man was at an end. Crozier had surrendered command of the ship and crew to Edward on the night he’d started his program of abstinence, and Edward was perfectly willing to use that power to force Thomas to get a single night’s sleep. He’d place the steward under arrest in his cabin if he had to, but there would be no hovering over Crozier’s bunk until Thomas had spent a full night in his own.

“Where’m I?” Thomas mumbled.

“In your cabin. Your bunk.” Edward leaned over him, gently undoing the buttons of his waistcoat. 

“Mine… Not yours?”

“Not tonight. You need to sleep.”

The eyes that had been snugly shut flew open, their green depths lit with sharp alarm, and Thomas leaned up, feebly batting at Edward’s hands. 

“The captain… I can’t leave him, Edward.” He started to pivot to slide his legs off the bunk, but Edward remained rooted in his way. “I have to go to him…”

“No, Thomas.” Grasping the steward’s shoulders gently, Edward eased him back upon the pillow. “You need your rest. I’ll make it an order if I must. The captain has no wish to see you sicken yourself with exhaustion. And God knows, neither do I. Relax. I’ll bed down in the great cabin tonight and go to the captain if he needs anything. Or I’ll wake McDonald and have him go. Perhaps you think I can’t take proper care of Crozier, given my rough sailor’s ways.”

His momentary panic already melting beneath his weariness, Thomas’s eyes flickered closed, a small placid smile on his lips as he shifted onto his side and snuggled deeper into the mattress. “I like…your rough sailor’s ways,” he mumbled. He took a few deep, measured breaths, his words slurring with sleepiness when he spoke again. “Belay that furling, Mr. Shanks!”

Edward barked a laugh, surprised to hear the echo of one of his commands from Thomas’s mouth. Wincing at his forgetful loudness, he pressed the back of his hand to his lips, the wool of his mitten chafing against the tender skin. Thomas was still smiling against his pillow, his lips moving as he mumbled something about stays and anchor cables. An indescribable buoyancy filled Edward’s chest.

“You’re a marvel, Thomas.”

The steward tucked one hand beneath his chin, rubbing half-heartedly at his eyes with the other. “The lieutenant likes me, I think.”

 _You have him wrapped about your finger_ , Edward wanted to say, _and well you know it_. Instead, he gently steered Thomas’s right arm out of his waistcoat, then rolled him over to do the same on the left. “You think so, do you? What a fool the lieutenant must be, to expose himself so.”

“Not a fool. Gentle and kind. And clever.” 

“Doesn’t sound too clever.” Easing the collar of Thomas’s jumper down, Edward began working the knot of his neck cloth loose, muscle memory sending a sizzle along every nerve. Each motion was familiar, performed at a faster pace in breathless moments of need. “Must have made himself pretty obvious, for you to pick up on it so easily.”

Thomas shook his head. “He’s careful. Stares at me, but I only notice… ‘cause I stare at him.” He stifled a yawn. “I… like looking at him. Have since the first. His hands. Mouth. Lovely dark eyes, drinking me up.”

Edward tried to keep himself in control as he pulled the length of cloth out from Thomas’s shirt. It took every ounce of his willpower not to yank his boots off and climb into the bunk beside him, to curl around his body and kiss him raw. “And does he know, this lucky lieutenant, how you feel about him? Maybe he thinks you look at him out of pity. Maybe he can’t imagine that someone so perfect could feel anything else for him.”

Eyes still closed, Thomas groped for Edward’s hand, bringing it up to tuck beneath his chin. He tilted his head down, pressing his lips to Edward’s knuckles, the backs of his fingers. “I’ll try harder to show him, then,” he murmured. “Can’t let him have any doubts.”

Summoning some reserve of self-denial he didn’t realize he possessed, Edward placed a single soft kiss to Thomas’s temple, then disentangled his hand and pulled away. The steward gave a happy hum and snuggled deeper into the mattress, and Edward reached down to remove his boots, pulling off first the right, then the left. Pressing his thumbs gently into arches and heels, he massaged the soles of Thomas’s feet through the fabric of his stockings, rubbing slow, steady circles. Thomas exhaled with a little moan of pleasure.

“You… spoil me, Edward.”

“It’s nothing compared to what I plan to do once we’re home.” Edward spoke the words as if they were a certainty, stomping down on the doubts that threatened to poke their heads up, mole-like, from the depths of his mind. He banished them as he always did: by thinking of all the ways he would keep his word back in England. Thomas would never work another day unless he wished to; never wash out another bucket of vomit, never serve other men their suppers. Edward had done the numbers, scribbling figures in the margins of his log: a desk job at the Admiralty, at one of the dockyards, and he’d have enough for lodgings, maybe a cottage in the country. He’d made mental lists of the gifts he’d shower on Thomas: the fine clothes he’d delight in taking off him, the goose down blankets beneath which he’d worship every inch of that slender, supple body. 

“My Edward will keep me, even then?”

The soft-spoken words nearly buckled Edward’s knees. Taking the folded blanket from the end of the bunk, he shook it out and spread it over Thomas, making sure every limb was covered, tucking the edges in around the steward’s shoulders. He cleared his throat gruffly.

“If you’ll let him.”

“‘Course I will.” Thomas yawned again, turning half upon his back and drawing the blanket up tighter beneath his chin. “I dream about it, sometimes.”

Pulling the chair out from the narrow writing desk, Edward angled it to face the bunk and sat down, leaning as close to Thomas as he dared. “Tell me, Tom. What do you dream?”

For a moment the steward was silent and Edward thought he had finally fallen asleep. Then, shifting a little beneath the blanket, he began to mumble. “Saturday mornings, no where to go. We lay in bed for hours, Edward and I, the sunshine falling through the windows. I make his breakfast, bring it to him. Feed him with my fingers. In the afternoons we walk: in garden, park. Down the lane. By the harbor. Edward points out the ships to me, tells me their names, their rates. Sees some he’s sailed in before. But he won’t board any of them. Not now. He won’t leave me. He prefers me to the sea.”

Edward reached up and rubbed at his burning eyes with the back of his hand. He didn’t dare speak, not trusting the steadiness of his voice or the tight constriction of his throat. He needed to let Thomas sleep, but it was too hard to be so near to him and not to touch him. It would take a stronger man than Edward was or ever could be. Reaching out, he drew his fingers slowly over the smooth surface of Thomas’s hair, easing a few locks off his brow. The steward sighed again and wiggled deeper into the blanket, contentment softening every muscle.

Lying there in the lamplight, its soft golden glow rippling wavelike across his face, Thomas looked like something out of a fairy tale, too perfect to be real, a mere enchantment that would disappear from beneath Edward’s hand. He thought of stories he’d heard in the nursery, of raven-haired maidens bewitched by wicked sorcerers or step-mothers, lulled by spells into magical sleep, their beauty so overpowering that knights would venture from far lands, braving any danger to rouse them with a kiss. Surely no princess in any story had ever appeared more breathtaking in her slumber than Thomas did at that moment, black lashes fanning out against his skin, sweeps of rosy color high on each cheekbone, lips soft and slightly parted, ripe for the caress of another mouth. Though he had kissed those lips dozens of times now, the act still seemed like an impossibility, a mythical task akin to stealing golden apples. 

He brushed his fingertips along the edge of Thomas’s ear, the line of his jaw, then returned them to the steward’s silken hair. “Stay with me?” Thomas whispered.

“Yes. For awhile. Until you’re asleep.”

Thomas sighed softly. “Talk to me. Like to hear your voice.”

Edward tried to think of something to say. That was always the problem: finding the right words. There was so much he wanted to express, to make Thomas understand, but he lacked the vocabulary or the dexterity of tongue, or maybe just the courage. And, after all, what were words anyway but strings of sounds, inadequate for communicating the immensity of what he felt.

He was struck at that moment by a memory, partially and imperfectly recalled, of sitting beside his mother at her pianoforte, plonking out the notes she pointed to, so young his body didn’t yet span the distance from bench to floor. Music might come nearer than words to saying what he wished to, but though he loved it, though he found a sympathetic thrill in the swelling of a symphony and the toss of a choppy sea, he had never mastered an instrument, never gained more than a rudimentary understanding of the dizzying latticework of musical notation. And he certainly couldn’t sing. Anyone at his childhood parish church could attest to that.

But songs were merely poetry in a different form, and as he lacked a book of verses, Edward settled for the next best thing.

Softly clearing the knot from his throat, he began reciting the bits and pieces he could remember, seeing in his mind as he did his mother bent over her sewing, hand and thread moving in motion with the words.

“Can you make me a cambrick shirt, without any seam or needlework? Can you wash it in yonder well, where never sprung water nor rain ever fell?” Closing his eyes in concentration, Edward groped for the next line, quite certain he was getting it all wrong. “Can you… can you dry it on yonder thorn… Which never bore blossom since Adam was born?”

His hand moved slowly over Thomas’s hair, the barest touch. The steward’s breathing was deep and even, the blanket undulating with the rise and fall of his chest. The part of the song that he’d forgotten came back to Edward in a rush, and he spoke the next lines in hushed tones, his gaze fixed on Thomas’s face.

“Now you have asked me questions three. _Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme_. I hope you’ll answer as many for me. And you shall be… a true lover of mine.”

Thomas didn’t stir; his features were perfectly relaxed, his expression serene. Edward gave his head one last stroke, heart pounding hard enough to be audible. “Love of mine,” he whispered. When Thomas remained still, he rose by increments from his seat, lest he spend the whole of the night sitting there, staring at the steward’s face. Edging his way around the chair, he walked as silently as he could manage to the door.

The shame of cowardice was in the heat that overspread his face, the pinpricks of sweat dotting the back of his neck. It had been liberating, and it would come again easier now, at a time when Thomas could truly appreciate it. But Edward still rebuked himself. He’d spoken the word at last, but to a sleeping man who couldn’t hear it.

And yet, glancing back at the steward, Edward saw that Thomas’s lips had curved into a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics to "Scarborough Fair" are those printed in Joseph Ritson's _Gammer Gurton's Garland; Or, The Nursery Parnassus. A Choice Collection of Pretty Songs and Verses. For the Amusement of all little good Children, Who can neither read or run_ , a collection first published in the late 18th century. ([x](http://www.justanothertune.com/html/cambricshirt.html)) A reprint appeared in 1810, so it's possible Edward heard this version in the nursery. :)


End file.
